Freebies and CASH, what’s legit?

Taking a break today from the Vegas on a budget series, but still sticking with the freebies theme, today I want to talk about free stuff! From samples to rewards to money you could be owed, today I will share some insider information with you. This all stems from my personal experiences.

First of all, there are a lot of websites out there that claim you can get full size items for free. They even go as far as to send you emails saying you won a $100 Sams card or a bottle of Tide laundry detergent. The catch with those is usually that you sign up for trial offers with a credit or debit card, they even tell you how many “sponsor offers” you have to “sign up” for to get the so called freebie. If you do it, good for you and I do hope you remember to cancel all those trials before you get charged. Now, i’m not saying that I can tell you how to get full size items and $100 gift cards, but I can tell you some legit ways to get samples and more if you keep reading…

For the last 15 years I have joined many websites, survey panels, PCH etc.. Many promise the chance to earn things like gift cards, money into your Paypal account, entries into sweepstakes and more. I have tried Inbox dollars, IPSOS, ISurvey, mysoapbox, Springboard America, you name it and I have probably tried it. the problem with those is, you get lots of emails from them saying you qualify for a survey with an incentive of say 1000 points for 30 minutes. You go to take the survey and after wasting about 10 minutes on what you thought was the survey, you find out you don’t qualify but you got 10 points for effort. Let’s say you got 500 bonus points for signing up, now you have 510 points but you need at least 5000 to get a $5 gift card and oops you can’t do your first purchase until you get at least 20,000 points. Good luck racking up points 10 at a time there friend!  Some will even keep cycling you through more presurveys when you don’t qualify until you are like I just answered that question 10 questions ago! I am even a member of one called Expert outpost. I have been a member of that website for almost a year and have only managed to earn enough points for a $5 cash card of some sort but I can’t cash out and that or a $10 card are the only reward options. Points add up slow because they have 2 poll questions per week worth 50 points each and a couple of discussion questions. Every once in a while, you get an email about a 1000 point survey but it NEVER works. The website is also super slow, which many people complained about when they asked recently what could be done to improve. 

I used to go on a website called Yes All 4 Free, but when I recently tried to access it, it was gone. That used to be one of my go to websites to find out about freebies, but now I have others. The first one I will tell you about is Sample Source this website gives you samples every few months. They send you an email to let you know when samples are available. When you first sign up, you will do a preliminary survey to help them be able to find suitable samples for you and you get to pick them. I have gotten some pretty neat samples from them including pet foods, a 3oz can of parmesan, a 10 load bottle of laundry soap, Floor cleaning products and more. Your samples come in a box. You never pay for anything, or even have to enter any payment information. From time to time they will ask you to do a survey on some of the products. The next one I would like to tell you about is Pinchme  Now pinchme will have you do a preliminary survey too, but they are a little different. Like SS you can pick out your own samples, but these are sometimes harder to get after your first few boxes. They give pretty good and decent sized samples too, but they always take forever to come. Even when they send you an email saying it shipped, it could still be 2 more weeks before you see it. Therefore, it is not uncommon to get emails about feedback on the samples before they even arrive. Sometimes it feels like they are not coming, but they do. PinchMe is more into feedback on all the samples you get and they will bug you a bit about completing them so try to get them done before the feedback surveys expire. 

Would you like to earn free magazine subscriptions to magazines like Parents, People, Seventeen, Better homes & Gardens, US Weekly, Entertainment weekly, ESPN, and many many more? Would you believe it if I said I have never had to pay for a magazine subscription and I get several every week? Are you wondering how and is it legal!? Yes 100% yes! Reward Survey is one of my go to sites. Once or twice a week they will email a short one page survey for you to do. Each survey will be worth $20 or $30 in rewards currency. After you complete the survey, it will take you to a page that shows you all the magazine subscriptions you can redeem. The subscriptions are different amounts from $10 up to $75 but I will mention that recently I have noticed that they have started adding a 99 cents processing fee to some but not all of the subscriptions. In that case, you will have to enter payment information if you choose one with a processing fee, but that is all you will pay. The other website I get magazines from is E-Rewards but e-rewards actually offers a lot more than just magazine subscriptions. You can get flight miles, starbucks gift cards, gamestop cards, Itunes cards, Shoedazzle credit and much more. This one isn’t as simple as Reward Survey however, you do have to qualify for and take longer surveys to earn smaller amounts of reward currency, but you actually do qualify for most of the surveys they send. Most of their surveys pay $5-$15 in rewards currency per survey, so if you actually do them then it will add up quickly. 

Let’s talk about money now. We have all bought products that don’t meet expectations or claims. Some things we have bought and never knew that they lied or something else. Every day people bring up class action lawsuits against companies for everything from unwanted robocalls to faulty parts to false claims and everything in between. Many times you may qualify for payment and or other things, but without filling out a claim form, you will get nothing. You also may be unable to sue the same company for the same reason in the future if you don’t know how to exclude yourself.

So how do you find out about settlements you might qualify for? There are websites devoted to keeping you informed on current, past, and ongoing lawsuits. Mysettlementclaims  is a good one to bookmark. I check it at least once a month myself. On this website it will show you a list of current settlements you could qualify for. If you think you might qualify for one just put a check mark in the box. The website will ask you 1-3 questions about each one you think you qualify for, tell you an estimate of what or how much you could get, and then give you links to each ones claim form. Most of the claim forms are short and can be filled out online. Some of them require printing and mailing a claim form with proof. Many of them will let you file a claim up to a certain amount without proof, but some require proof to get anything. If you still have proof, you stand to get full reimbursement instead of partial. When you file a claim, most times the notice on the website will try to give you an idea of how much you could get out of the settlement, but that could go up or down depending on several different factors such as more people than anticipated signing up or less people signing up. The notices will also contain information on hearing dates & locations etc.. But keep in mind that a hearing date is not a check date. One settlement could come 6 months after you signed up, while another might come 3 years after you signed up. It all depends on how the case goes. Appeals could be filed, the case could be lost, the judge could order a defendant to pay over a certain amount of years, any number of things. Checks do come, but you never know when or for how much. The smallest check I have ever gotten with no proof submitted was about $4 while the largest no proof submitted check was over $650 and also came with a few hundred dollars worth of airline vouchers. My fiance’s check for that settlement was over $1000 and he got almost $1000 worth of airline vouchers too.  Another website you can check is BigClassAction this website lists a lot of the larger settlements and has a form for you to ask lawyers about starting your own case if needed. Likewise you can check for settlements or try to file your own case at TopClassAction or on Classaction   But websites are not the only way to find out about lawsuits. Some are posted in magazines, you might hear about one on the radio, or even see one on TV.                   

If you have read my previous blogs, you have seen me mention Microsoft Rewards formerly Bing Rewards. This one is super easy to earn rewards on. I have had a hotmail account since I was a teenager and still use the account. I check my emails and then go to the rewards dashboard. There are always things to click on for bonus points, quizzes to take for bonus points, and you also get up to 150 points per day on bing searches on your PC while logged in. If you earn 500 points, you get to stay at reward level 2 which makes your rewards a little cheaper and you can easily earn 500 points in 2-3 days depending on how many quizzes and bonus clicks you encounter. The more points you earn, the more rewards choices they will show you. On the rewards page you can choose to donate your points to a charity at $1 per 1000 points, you can enter sweepstakes you won’t win, or you can go for sure prizes! These can include (but they do change some) $5-$10 Burger king gift cards, $5-$10 Starbucks gift cards, $10 AMC movie gift cards, $5-$10 Gamestop gift cards and several more.

Before I close out I will let you in on a secret.. If you have a problem with a product or even if you love it, contact the company and let them know. Most times they will be glad for the feedback good or bad, and send you products or coupons for free or almost free products. I once bought some insoles I didn’t like and called the company to complain. They listened, took down my information, and mailed me a box full of different insoles for free. Some months back I bought some 15oz cans of Hormel Chili that had an expiration date on them for January of 2019 so they were supposed to be good. The cans had no dents or other visible damage, but when I pulled the tab to open one, I was met with black mold! See slideshow below.

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I returned them to the store for a refund immediately and returned home to call the company. They sent me out 3 coupons good for $3 (each) off on products from their many brands. When I posted this online, some people said they only trust Stagg Chili, but I have news for them Stagg is made by the same company! With that said, I am going to bring this one to a close. Get out there and claim your freebies!

Until next time,

Cici